Dealing dating older man

At 18, I was just beginning to explore my sexuality and he was already comfortable in his.

I think it was a thrill for him and gave him a chance to relive some of his adolescence.

Would you say that you are more attracted to older men than younger men, or men in your age group? I've also always been attracted to power dynamics and to the idea of inhabiting a more sexually submissive role.

My cousin actually said, "Forty-five is the new 30!

" My mother was less OK with it, but I expected that. Woman D: My family, especially my father, were very much against the relationship. My friends thought it was "gross" and it took them nearly all four years of college to warm up to my boyfriend.

Woman A: I was working in retail at the time, and he was a customer. He looks younger than he is and is in very good shape.

Woman C: I knew he was older, I just didn't think that he was that much older.

Woman B: I rented a flat in the backyard of his then-girlfriend. But I knew he was probably 10 years older than me and that was a little bit of the attraction, because I thought that he would be older and more settled with none of the bullshit that you have in your 20s.

Did/does it impact sex at all, for better or for worse? This was one of the many ways the relationship was emotionally abusive — sex was always ostensibly on the table, but no matter how much I threw myself at him, I was always rejected. The fact that this man didn't want to have sex with me in spite of claiming to love me, in spite of the fact that men allegedly always want sex, in spite of the fact that they allegedly especially want sex with much younger women — all of this made the continual rejection especially painful. We have different tastes sexually — I'm more adventurous — but that has nothing to do with age.

If anything, his emotional maturity has allowed us to have those tough conversations about sex.

Woman B: I was 23 when we started dating and he was 39. We got back in contact and I realized how much I missed having him in my life. Woman A: Looking back, I think he needed a partner who would tolerate his bullshit if he was to be in a relationship at all.

Woman A: The longest lasting of these relationships started when I was 18 and he was 40. However, we didn't start dating until I was 18 and he was 36. They split up around 2009 and I didn't hear from him for 18 months. Do you think your age was part of the attraction for him?

How did/does the age gap impact your relationship once you were in it?